The summer of 2012 continues on its dry and hot path with the first four days of July near 100 degrees and bone dry for most in the state. One of the harder hit areas is east central Iowa. The featured chart presents the combination of precipitation and stress degree days (units of daily high temperature above 86 degrees) for the 1 May to 4 July period for Cedar Rapids. The deviant years are labeled. For Cedar Rapids, this growing season is one of the driest on record. For stress degree days, this year has the largest accumulation since 1988. Of course, most of us remember how bad that year was for the drought in Iowa.

Voting:
Good = 51
Bad = 11